Pregnancy is supposed to be one of the happiest times in a woman’s life. For me, it was one of the loneliest.

I always imagined pregnancy being a really special time in my life.

Not perfect, but special. The kind of time where you feel supported, excited, and a little scared in a good way. I thought it would be something my partner and I experienced together — something that brought us closer while we were getting ready to become parents.

My daughter’s father already had children from a previous marriage and had gotten a vasectomy years before we met. So when we found out I was pregnant, it felt like something really meaningful. It felt like we were choosing to build a life together, even though things hadn’t originally been planned that way.

Instead, I felt lonely pretty early on.

I was sick a lot during my pregnancy. I had really bad nausea, pregnancy insomnia, and this constant exhaustion that felt like it lived in my bones.

Eventually my doctors figured out part of what was going on. I was hypoglycemic and anemic during my pregnancy, which explained some of the fainting spells I was having. There were times where I would suddenly feel lightheaded, like the room was spinning and I might pass out.

Later on, I was also told I had high amniotic fluid. Combined with the summer heat, my body was constantly swollen and uncomfortable.

But because I wasn’t constantly throwing up, my daughter’s father didn’t really believe how bad I felt. A lot of the time it felt like my experience was being brushed off or minimized, like I was being dramatic.

Eventually my OB-GYN diagnosed me with prenatal depression. When I told my daughter’s father, his response was basically that I should be happy. He didn’t really understand why I would be depressed, and it felt like somehow it was being framed as something I was choosing.

That’s when the resentment really started creeping in.

I knew pregnancy wouldn’t be easy. I knew I’d be tired. I knew morning sickness was a thing. But I didn’t expect it to hit me the way it did. Between the nausea, the insomnia, and the exhaustion, I already felt like my body was barely keeping up.

And without support from my partner, it just made everything heavier.

It made the depression worse.

Pregnancy was supposed to be this time where you felt taken care of while you were growing a baby. Instead, I felt like I was just surviving it.

I remember seeing other women who were pregnant around the same time as me and hearing how their husbands were treating them — rubbing their backs, helping them through the hard days, doing little things to make things easier.

People would say things to me like,
“Just have your man massage your back.”
“He should be taking such good care of you right now.”

I never had any of that.

And I longed for it more than I ever said out loud.

I cried alone a lot during that pregnancy. Sometimes in my car. Sometimes in the shower. Sometimes just sitting on the couch while my ex was in the other room playing video games.

There’s something incredibly isolating about crying alone while you’re pregnant — especially when the person you thought would be supporting you through it is just a room away.

While I was sitting there crying alone, it started to sink in that this pregnancy was nothing like the one I had always imagined.

It felt like the pregnancy I dreamed of was stolen from me.

Around eight weeks into my pregnancy, I started noticing things that didn’t sit right with me.

At that point, hardly anyone even knew I was pregnant yet. The only people I had told were my daughter’s father and my best friend. I didn’t want to tell anyone else until I was in the “safe zone.” I was petrified of having a miscarriage, and I knew the chances dropped in the second trimester.

My plan was to wait until I was at least fourteen weeks before sharing the news.

So in a lot of ways, I was carrying this pregnancy pretty quietly.

But even that early on, there were things happening that made my stomach drop.

A lot of it had to do with social media. Things I would notice that didn’t add up. Things that made me question what was really going on in our relationship.

I questioned him about it a few times.

But after a while, I started biting my tongue.

I was pregnant, already struggling emotionally, and the thought of pushing too hard and losing the relationship completely terrified me.

As my pregnancy went on, the physical side of things got harder too.

I remember one moment really clearly.

I was trying to carry the tray from my daughter’s high chair upstairs while my ex carried the actual high chair. Halfway up the stairs, I suddenly felt that familiar feeling hit me.

I got extremely lightheaded. My stomach turned and I felt really nauseous. My vision started going blurry and my ears were ringing the way they do right before you faint. I started seeing black spots, and my body started shaking.

And then my body just gave out.

I collapsed on the staircase.

Instead of sounding concerned, he sounded irritated.

“Wow, you really are milking it,” he said. “You can’t even carry a little tray up the stairs?”

He snatched the tray from my hands and walked away, leaving me sitting there on the stairs trying to figure out how to pull myself together.

At the time I was so physically out of it that I didn’t even emotionally process what had just happened.

But when I think about that moment now, it still hurts my heart.

By the time I reached my third trimester, my body felt completely worn down.

I was hardly sleeping. I’d wake up constantly because I was uncomfortable. The muscle cramps were awful, and the sciatic nerve pain I had dealt with throughout my pregnancy felt like it had gotten a hundred times worse by the end.

I was constantly getting up to pee.

Even my dreams were strange. I kept having bizarre dreams where I was cheating on my ex with someone I had dated before him. Every time I woke up from one of those dreams, I felt so guilty.

I remember thinking, Why am I even dreaming about this person? I don’t even want to be with him.

But deep down I think I knew why.

That relationship had never made me feel as lonely as I felt during my pregnancy. Realizing that made me feel even worse.

Sometimes I’d even catch myself wondering what if.

It’s strange to admit that now. I never told anyone about those thoughts at the time.

One night I remember sitting on the living room floor crying because I was just done. My body hurt. I was exhausted. I just wanted the pregnancy to be over so I could finally meet my baby.

That was another time he said it.

“Enjoy it while you can. You’ll never be pregnant again.”

I remember telling him I didn’t care.

I was just done.

Toward the end of my pregnancy, I also hated running errands by myself.

I hated how noticeable my body had become. Everywhere I went people had something to say about it. Strangers would comment on how big my stomach was, ask when my due date was, or tell me I looked like I was about to pop any day.

Most of the time I knew they meant well.

But I hated the attention.

I look young, and sometimes I felt like people were looking at me like I was too young to have a baby even though I was in my late twenties.

Sometimes people would say things like, “You’re so young to be a mom.”

It always made me feel awkward.

One day I didn’t even want to go to the gas station by myself because of it. I told my ex that it helped when he came with me.

I noticed people didn’t really try talking to me when he was with me. I also felt like I wasn’t being looked at as much when he was with me.

But instead of coming with me, he said something he had already told me a few times before.

“Enjoy it while you can. You’ll never be pregnant again.”

That sentence really struck a nerve with me.

So hearing him say that while I was pregnant — “You’ll never be pregnant again” — made it feel like things had definitely changed.

His mind had changed.
He switched plans on me.
His feelings had changed.

And it wasn’t going to be what we talked about anymore.

When my daughter was born, I didn’t have the instant overwhelming love connection that people always talk about.

It was more disbelief.

I remember looking at her and thinking, Wow… she’s actually mine.

It felt like my entire life had just changed in a way I couldn’t fully process yet.

At the same time, I felt an incredible sense of relief.

After months of being physically miserable during pregnancy, finally not being pregnant anymore felt like a breath of fresh air.

And even though that pregnancy was one of the loneliest experiences of my life, it gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever known — my daughter.

Looking back now, that pregnancy was one of the hardest chapters of my life. In many ways, I still feel like it traumatized me.

It was lonely. It was confusing. It was physically and emotionally exhausting in ways I never expected.

But it also taught me something important.

So many women struggle through pregnancy feeling unsupported, depressed, or completely alone — and almost no one talks about it.

We’re told pregnancy should be glowing and magical.

But sometimes it isn’t.

Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s heartbreaking. Sometimes it’s the loneliest experience a woman can go through.

And that’s exactly why I created Raw Mothering.

Because mothers deserve a place where they can tell the truth about these experiences without feeling ashamed of them.

And if that’s you — you’re not alone anymore.